1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a photoelectric conversion element using an oxide semiconductor, and a photovoltaic cell.
2. Related Art
According to the related art, a photovoltaic cell (photoelectric conversion element) using silicon has gathered attention as an environmentally friendly power source. The photovoltaic cell using silicon is formed by a PN junction on a single crystal or polycrystalline silicon substrate (refer to JP-A-1-220380).
However, such a photovoltaic cell has high manufacturing costs, and further a high degree of control over the manufacturing conditions is necessary. Furthermore, a large amount of energy is necessary in manufacturing, and it cannot be said that the power source necessarily saves energy.
Dye-sensitized solar batteries which have low manufacturing costs, and further, use little manufacturing energy are being developed as next generation solar batteries that replace the current solar batteries. However, because an electrolyte with high vapor pressure is used in the dye-sensitized photovoltaic cell, there is a problem with the electrolyte volatilizing.
Furthermore, as a photovoltaic cell of a recent and newly developed method, there is a method in which a domain structure of a ferroelectric material is used (for example, refer to S. Y. Yang, J. Seidel, S. J. Byrnes, P. Shafer, C.-H. Yang, M. D. Rossell, P. Yu, Y.-H. Chu, J. F. Scott, J. W. Ager, III, L. W. Martin, and R. Ramesh: Nature Nanotechnology 5 (2010) p. 143).
However, S. Y. Yang, J. Seidel, S. J. Byrnes, P. Shafer, C.-H. Yang, M. D. Rossell, P. Yu, Y.-H. Chu, J. F. Scott, J. W. Ager, III, L. W. Martin, and R. Ramesh: Nature Nanotechnology 5 (2010) p. 143 reports that when a single crystal ferroelectric has a domain structure, electricity is generated through light irradiation, and the prospects for practical usage are a completely unknown quantity.